Musings on life and death

As an undergraduate student at Brandeis I studies my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, and her obsession with death and dying.  She was rather morbid, but interesting.  I find myself thinking more about death now that I am middle-aged and watching my father's illness and decline.  And now, the deaths of public icons, plane crashes, car accidents, it is just all so random.  Life has become so random and violent and unpredictable.  It is no longer easy the way it was for some gentry in the old days to retreat into some inner world and not really interact in any external way, there was no internet and 24 hour news cycle screaming news and information at them.  Life was much slower, with time to contemplate the world, experience it, live it or choose not to live it, but there was time.  Now we listen to music while the tv is on, while we text and email and surf, and get nothing done, and think no great thoughts, experience little, just watch the world go by and watch those who have accomplished greatness depart.